Tag Archives: soil testing

Free Soil Testing Workshop and Brief Tick Talk May 11th

Please join me at 7 p.m. tonight at the Easton Garden Club’s monthly meeting where I’ll be leading a free soil testing workshop and also presenting a brief tick talk. The meeting is at the Covenant Congregational Church on Centre Street, in the basement gymnasium. More comprehensive testing from UMass for fertility or fertility plus organic matter is available at a small extra cost. The Club will provide bags and ship your sample to UMass.

For each garden area you want tested, bring one clean one-quart clear glass jar and lid, with 3-1/2 cups of dry soil.

THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING ABOUT SOIL TESTING is to properly sample and let your soil air dry. Info and instructions are below.

What to Bring:

1 Clean, dry one-quart clear glass jar with fairly straight sides, with a tight fitting lid for each sample you want tested. A pasta sauce or mason jar works quite well.

3-1/2 Cups of dry soil in your jar for every sample you want tested. **REMEMBER to properly sample and dry your soil before putting it in your jar.

How to Sample Your Soil:

The most critical step in soil testing is collecting the sample. It is important that you take the necessary steps to obtain a representative sample; a poor sample could result in erroneous recommendations.

The first step is to determine the area that will be represented by the sample. For instance, your veggie garden might be one sampling area, your front island bed another, and your backyard lawn still another. Soil physical appearance, texture, color, slope, drainage, past management and current intended use should be similar throughout the area. It may be helpful to draw a map of the property and identify areas where you will collect samples.

Using a clean bucket and a spade, auger, or sampling tube collect 12 or more sub-samples to a depth of six to eight inches (four to six inches for turf) from random spots within the defined area. Avoid sampling field or plot edges and other non-representative areas.

Avoid sampling when the soil is very wet or within six to eight weeks after a lime or fertilizer application. Next, break up any lumps or clods of soil, remove stones, roots, and debris, and thoroughly mix sub-samples in the bucket. Once the sample is thoroughly mixed, scoop out a little more than one cup of soil and spread it on a clean sheet of paper to air-dry. A fan set on low will help speed the drying; do not apply heat.

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TOP 5 GARDENING TIPS FOR APRIL

Do not work on your lawn or garden just after a big rain.

A note from a friendly frittilary butterfly: stepping in your garden or working on your lawn when the soil is wet damages your plants’ ability to thrive. (Image 2017 Carol Lundeen. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED)

#1. CAUTION: WET SOIL – DO NOT ENTER YOUR GARDEN – OR WORK ON YOUR LAWN!

  • Our recent rains have left our soils saturated, and if you step into your shrub and garden beds now you’ll be causing mostly invisible but meaningful damage that makes it harder for your plants to thrive.
  • Compacting your soil: plant roots depend on the spaces between soil particles to hold water and oxygen. When you step on wet soil, you compact these spaces and your plants suffer.
  • One cup of soil may hold as many bacteria as there are people on Earth, never mind the fungi, protozoa, nematodes, arthropods, and earthworms – most of which are beneficial to you most of the time. Together, these tiny beings are a living system called the Soil Food Web, and it’s best to not to step on them when the soil is wet.
  • To test if your soil is dry enough, take a handful of soil and squeeze it. If the soil crumbles easily when you open your hand, it is ready to be walked on or tilled. If it does not crumble, it is too wet. Allow the soil to dry for a few more days and test again before digging.

#2. GET YOUR SOIL TESTED – BEFORE YOU PLANT!

  • Before planting is a good time to get a Routine Soil Analysis from the UMass Soil and Plant Nutrient Testing Lab to check pH and fertility. This economical soil test will provide recommendations for liming and fertilizing as needed, as well as indicating the lead level in the soil.

#3. START YOUR COOL-SEASON VEGETABLES – ONCE THE SOIL DRAINS!

  • Now is a good time to sow seeds of cool season crops such as peas, lettuce, chard, kale, arugula, spinach, carrot, radish, beet and turnips.
  • Plant the seeds as soon as the ground can be worked. Sow your spinach, beets, radish, carrots and lettuce thickly in rows and thin later to the desired spacing (read the label) and to allow them to develop properly. Root crops such as carrots, beets, and radishes should be thinned to a 2-inch spacing to allow the roots to develop properly. They can be thinned as soon as they reach small edible size.

#4. EAGER TO JUMP START YOUR LAWN?

  • Your doctor wouldn’t give you a treatment without first making a diagnosis, right? Same goes with your lawn. Why treat your lawn for grubs or other turf insects if you don’t first discover what’s causing a problem? Grub populations are easy to evaluate, as are other sub-surface and surface insects. Once you diagnose properly, you can treat with a reasonable solution rather than automatically throwing money and chemicals at the situation.
  • Start weaning your lawn off the expensive, stepped conventional petrochemical-based fertilizers by switching to a slow release, low-nitrogen organic fertilizer like Roots Fresh Start. Apply once in early spring after the soil has begun to warm up and apply again in early fall. The water-insoluble nutrients will be recycled and released by your friendly soil microbes slowly over the entire growing season as they’re needed by your turf, rather than getting flushed (along with your money) away with rain and any irrigation.
  • Doing a lawn renovation this year? Wait until September for best results and return on your investment.

#5. MONITOR FOR WINTER MOTH CATERPILLARS

  • Winter moth caterpillars cause damage to many different deciduous plants such as oaks, maples, cherries, ash, crabapples, apples and blueberries. their eggs typically hatch early-mid April, and the young larvae quickly start feeding on flower buds, leaf buds and young developing leaves.
  • Winter moth egg hatch has not yet been observed for this growing season as of 4/5/17 in Massachusetts. Scouts are still reporting that winter moth eggs are orange in color and have not yet turned the blue color that indicates hatch is imminent. Eggs can be sprayed with dormant oil before they hatch, but the eggs can hide under pieces of bark and be hard to reach with spray.
  • Once the caterpillars hatch, they’re eager to eat their host plants. Dormant oil will no longer work, but there’s a fairly safe treatment that simply takes their appetite away. It’s a kind of bacteria called bacillus thuringiensis var. Kurstaki. In some forms it’s approved for use on organic farms. Always read and follow the label.

(BONUS #6.) CELEBRATE ARBOR DAY BY PLANTING A TREE ON APRIL 28 

  • Arbor Day is an annual observance that celebrates the role of trees in our lives and promotes tree planting and care. The best tree selection may be a native tree that is well suited to thrive in your yard with your existing soil, sun, water, and other cultural conditions. Have your soil tested before investing in your new tree or shrub.

AS ALWAYS,PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTACT ME IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS OR NEED A HAND! 

EMAIL CAROL  OR CALL 617-327-9254

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SUPPORT OUR LIONS: Bid on a Home Soil Test at Sunday’s Easton Lions Club Live Charity Auction

This horticulturist’s best advice?  Invest in a soil test before investing one cent of money or a second of your valuable time shopping for plants.

Where can you get a soil test, how do you sample and prepare your soil for testing, where do you send it, what does it cost, and what should you do with the results?  Well, this Sunday, March 13, the Easton Lions Club is holding a televised charity auction at the Oliver Ames High School cafeteria from 2-8 p.m., and Garden-911 is donating two gift certificates for home soil testing.

Below is a link to the Lions’ auction site where you can learn more.  To bid on these certificates, know that this is a live auction item so you must be present at the auction to bid:

Garden-911 Soil Test Certificates Available at the 2016 Lions Club Charity Auction

So come on down on Sunday, support the Lions and our community, and support the safe, smart stewardship of your land, starting with a soil test.  I’ll be there volunteering, so please feel free to find me and say hello.

If you don’t win the bidding, thanks for being a good sport and supporting the Lions.

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